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Creating a route top down gives you the opertunity to craft a masterpiece. The idea at least for me is to end up with a route that is fun and exciteing. If you over bolt it is not exciteing and if you under bolt then it is not fun. I try to find a perfect ballance of exciteing without being stupid dangerous. Keep the sporty parts either below the grade or with clean safe falls. Bottom line is that mostly I put the climb up so that I can have fun shareing them with friends and repeteing them. If they are stupid dangerous my friends will hate me and I won't want to repete the dam thing = total waste of time, money and rock.

I usually don't entertain this subject because I love bouldering, sport climbing and trad equally. After just spending 10 days in Yosemite it dawned on me that for the most part the bolted routes that I climb tend to be scarier than the trad ones. I don't know what routes people are climbing trad on regularly but almost all the classics that I can think of in New Hampshire tend to be so well protected that they are less scary than the bolted routes. Recompense, Intimidation, Diedre, Lichen Delight, Robinson Crusoe and dozens of other classics are so well protected that they are only as dangerous as you choose to make them, they are all way less scary than the "bolted" section on Ladyslipper for sure. Climbing at higher grades at Rumney, Shell or Wild River is just easier because you don't have to hang on as long to find the right piece but once you have fallen on nuts and cams enough times I don't think that it's any scarier than bolts. And as far as bold goes I think that high ball bouldering is by far the boldest with the most severe consequences, on a regular basis. This train of thought doesn't apply to folks who are leading stuff like Stage Fright, but that's not the bulk of us. If you avoid sport climbing then I think that you are missing out on great training value. The best routes in the world are trad though. The Rostrum, Astroman, etc.

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DLottmann

Creating a route top down gives you the opertunity to craft a masterpiece. The idea at least for me is to end up with a route that is fun and exciteing. If you over bolt it is not exciteing and if you under bolt then it is not fun. I try to find a perfect ballance of exciteing without being stupid dangerous. Keep the sporty parts either below the grade or with clean safe falls. Bottom line is that mostly I put the climb up so that I can have fun shareing them with friends and repeteing them. If they are stupid dangerous my friends will hate me and I won't want to repete the dam thing = total waste of time, money and rock.

Gotta agree with you here. While I have the utmost respect for those who pioneered the ground up FA I'l rather have well thought out bolts vrs. this is where I could drill from bolts. at least when it comes to craggin'.

Creating a route top down gives you the opertunity to craft a masterpiece. The idea at least for me is to end up with a route that is fun and exciteing. If you over bolt it is not exciteing and if you under bolt then it is not fun. I try to find a perfect ballance of exciteing without being stupid dangerous. Keep the sporty parts either below the grade or with clean safe falls. Bottom line is that mostly I put the climb up so that I can have fun shareing them with friends and repeteing them. If they are stupid dangerous my friends will hate me and I won't want to repete the dam thing = total waste of time, money and rock.

Gotta agree with you here. While I have the utmost respect for those who pioneered the ground up FA I'l rather have well thought out bolts vrs. this is where I could drill from bolts. at least when it comes to craggin'.

This has turned out to be one of the more insidious effects of sport climbing. Not saying it's good or bad, I just didn't see it coming that the mainstream method of putting up new routes of all kinds would become rapping, cleaning, and inspecting first. We were putting up what I guess was a new route at Brandon Gap, anyway, new to me with no evidence of any prior ascent, and when I racked up my partner said, 'Aren't you going rap it first?' Ummm, no, I told him I was going up to find out what was there, and he said 'I've never done it that way before.' I was nonplussed to say the least, but when I started looking around and reading some of the stuff on line I realized that is the new norm. I've certainly rapped and cleaned lines before (I've even placed a few bolts on rappel, but don't spread that around), but I've always felt a little slutty about it.

GU is fine as long as you have the decency to fix whatever mistakes you made in the heat of the moment. I have a few GU FA's that I feel are perfect right out of the box and I have a few that needed a few changes to be perfect. I also have a few that I would rather have cleaned and prepped top down. GU is however hands down a LOT less work than top down.

My current project I did the lower part GU simply because I was too scared to rap over the huge roof and down aid back to the wall. We accomplished as much in the one GU session as the previous 5 TD sessions.

+1 for Lee's post. If I placed as many bolts per pitch as the average trad leader places bomber gear (myself included) I would get laughed right out of town;)

This has turned out to be one of the more insidious effects of sport climbing. [....]I realized that is the new norm.

This is not a new norm. It is sport climbing norm.

when people disagree with there norm... they insult you, challenge you like in grindripper or a geometrical equation, delete what you said when you bring argument which is different, like describing the reflex to place a pro like in a gym in a dangerous situation for sport and down climbing in a trad mentality as you do when you on sight a new route.

Actually, in quebec the accident that we have are of the same nature than the one that a person who make a syntax mistake. He know what to do, but for a reason he didn't do it...he have a reflex that, still very good in sport, is not in trad.

The article was wrote to built heuristic clue good for sport.

But it is out topic in this thread. Some proof that trad mentality, bottom up, still exist fortunately. The new guide book is a gem for that.

Pappy, what did you do up on Horrid? that place has a pretty cool feel to it....Nick

didn't see this earlier...we were way around to the right at the high dark face where the WI5 pillar forms. The only sign of activity we've ever seen was an old pin that seemed to be associated with the ice climb, although it seems likely that people have climbed the rock, too, around there. there's a bitchin' arete I've wanted to do, too, and I've about convinced myself that a dark smudge half way up it will be a killer tri-cam placement, but oh, the horror if it isn't...but rapping to find out for sure would kill the adventure.

I was a beginner and after the first pitch, I had to climb an off widths. So, I stacked two hexes together as a first pro and I look higher. There was a small block in the crack where I can place a good nuts. As I was close to my limit for that time, I took a stopper and hold it with my mouth, so it will be handy to place...and I climbed. At the block, at test it...and it literally disintegrated in my hand. I was so surprised that I open my mouth, the stopper falling to the bottom. So surprise that I was not able, and feel not safe, to climb higher and begin to down climb. As I was doing it, I slept and fall on my two hexes...which catch the fall. After a pendulum, I came to a rest and my partner climb the pitch.

Knowing where to place the pro from the top and I never had that adventure. (I practiced to stack to hex or nuts and hex before the climb)

That is a cool place to have adventures for sure! The few routs i have done up there were all Ground up. can be mighty loose in places. I did retro bolt my 5.7X climb on the east face of the little finger but I retroed on lead at least....